By SPP's request, this topic is now open for business.

Jean
WebMom

By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Monday, November 23, 2009 - 08:06 pm: Edit

SPP,

According to the Fed player in my campaign, it was unbeatable, but the caveat is that we use an 84x60 map. The extra manuevering room was largely responsible for the monster's invincibility. I assume for playtesting we should restrict ourselves to a 42x30 map and use the published scenario?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 09:43 am: Edit

Dale McKee:

The Death Probe was presumeably originally tested and balanced on a standard 42x30 closed map as given in the scenario. I would expect it to be unbeatable on a double sized map, way too much room to maneuver increasing the difficulty of trying to box it in.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 10:22 am: Edit

When submitting my CL 20 article I did playtest my trobin force against it and beat it handily, but I used FC for this as we had time restraints.

I played it out to a degree under SFB and it was difficult for the Trobin but I thought no worse than 60/40.

I suspect that if you select a 600 bpv force of most races knowing you are going against the Death Probe it would be a close game. Larger maps will advantage it a lot.

By Jacob Karpel (Psybomb) on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 03:24 pm: Edit

Thanks for putting up this thread, SPP, and for the correspondence to date. I'm the "concerned player" mentioned, and for reference purposes I'm going to put up the tactics used by the Probe player in my group. He described it as "a bit like pre-doomsday Andromedans"

Biggest point is that he starts at speed 32 and never leaves it. First turn he dashes at the planet and unloads, and then hooks back with a HET to end his turn a hex or two away from the planet. From there his moves vary a bit. If the players concentrate, he circles wide and snipes the weakest one he can reach while generating 7 ECCM and 2 ECM. He figures he can take the punishment from about 5-8 hexes and get away clean, relying on regen to cover what he couldn't.

If the players disperse to corner him, he'll charge one of the two on the ends and open fire at range 0-1 with everything he has and blow away the ship. If there are drones that can catch him, he'll use one or two of his Phaser-Gs to take them out but reserve everything else for ships.

His tactics essentially continue the same way, running for a turn or two then ducking back in via his two HETs per turn to snipe a weak individual or blow out someone who is too isolated. Other than that first turn, he ignores the planet until the players are dead or crippled. His movement tends to stay within the outside 3-4 hexes of the map unless he's executing an attack run.

The speed plus regeneration is the key here, as he can largely ignore seeking weapons even on a standard board. When it becomes important that the weapons are there, the just targets them with his Phaser-Gs 2 impulses before they get to him, and the rest of his weaponry on the next impulse if this proves insufficient.

The Probe's difficulty also stems from a willingness to go into greatly-extended games. The victories I'm talking about take place over the course of 8-10 turns minimum. By that point, Drones tend to be expended and the players have lost weaponry and repair capability beyond what the Probe has lost (and usually most of their drones as well), and so he turns into the group and goes for a stand-up fight, from which he'll usually emerge at a bit over half health in return for either outright destroying one ship or crippling two.

Thanks again for opening up this testing thread.
-Jacob

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 04:37 pm: Edit

Paul, what is the "FC" you mention? It can't be FedCom as it wasn't available when that issue was published.

But looking at the Probe, I also compared it to the Federation Commander Version, and saw that the SFB version is very much 'all or nothing', in that it operates at full capacity until it is crippled, and that the FedCom version has a more scaled damage, loosing systems and speed at a more gradual pace.

I would like to see (and do for myself) a Deathprobe fight using the FedCom damage in the SFB system.

By Dave Bank (Dirk) on Thursday, November 26, 2009 - 11:16 am: Edit

I'm also in the play group that Jacob plays in, and I once played the Death Probe.

We (the play group) have played the scenario several times, each time tweaking it to see what different results might be obtained. For example, we tried the defending ships at WS-III (the scenario specs WS-I) and we increased the defending fleet's BPV to about 800. However, we haven't played with Speed 32 Drones, and the planet makes use of Type III or ATG-equipped drones problematic.

The defending fleets have varied (always multiple races), from war- and battle-cruisers to dreadnoughts and heavy battlecruisers. We even tried a war scout (Lyran Serval) to help supress the EW capabilities of the Death Probe along with the Hydran Iron Duke (lots of Hellbores which are less-affected by EW).

With its ability to HET and move at Speed 32, it could dodge or outrun any drone wave or plasma swarm. No time limit means an incentive to do precisely that. Its EW capacity takes a scout to effectively counter, and the Phaser 4s make close approach suicide. Maybe a B-10 could go toe-to-toe, but there's never one around when you need it.

After a number of runs at this scenario, the consensus that formed among the players was that playing the scenario using the monster's automatic movement/attack rules (e.g. without a player playing the monster) was probably doable, but if the monster was played by someone not under those constraints, then the defending fleet was toast. The Death Probe destroyed a Fed CC+ in one impulse.

The "fix" that seemed to have consensus among the players was to "tether" the Death Probe, at least when it is played by a player instead of using the automatic rules. The idea would be to establish a rule that the Death Probe could not exceed the initial, opening distance between it and the planet at the start of the scenario (14 hexes, if I recall correctly). That would prevent the Death Probe simply dodging drones and running plasmas out, and would force the player playing the Death Probe to concentrate a significant portion of firepower on the planet instead of the defending fleet.

By Marshall N. Bishop (Lordbishop) on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 06:27 pm: Edit

Isn't supposed to be unbeatable? I mean really the only way kirk killed the darn thing was to give it logical paradox syndrome! He was lucky that the thing was damaged and the sofware was ancient! I mean really if Kirk couldn't beat it in hand to hand combat what chance do we have in our starships! lol

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, March 18, 2011 - 01:08 am: Edit

Wow, topic necromancy.

But, I don't remember a Death Probe type monster ever appearing in TOS, unless you count the movies. What episode is this?

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Friday, March 18, 2011 - 12:24 pm: Edit

I suspect the inspiration was Nomad.

By Marshall N. Bishop (Lordbishop) on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Yeah I was informed by my dad that the death probe was inspired by the probe from one of the movies. I was looking at the federation commander ssd which looks small and compact. So I assumed it was inspired by nomad. Still haven't gone through my dad's archives to find the actual scenario.